


away she flies

by crickets



Category: The Killing
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-15
Updated: 2013-07-15
Packaged: 2017-12-20 07:34:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/884652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crickets/pseuds/crickets





	away she flies

**Author's Note:**

  * For [waltzmatildah](https://archiveofourown.org/users/waltzmatildah/gifts).



Rosie doesn't realize how much she loves her little brothers until the morning before she leaves.

No.

That's a lie.

She has always known it. Always felt it. It just never seemed to matter so much until now.

-

She can barely hear what her mom is saying because she's too busy trying to memorize everything about her. The lines of her face. The way she looks so concerned even when she doesn't need to be. The way she smells, like that shampoo she always uses. The curl of her hair that so much resembles Rosie's.

There's not enough time to memorize it all, and Rosie has this feeling that there would never be enough time.

_Even if she stood in this kitchen forever._

-

There's this moment, right before she leaves the house that day, where she looks at Stan and she can't bear to leave him.

_Daddy_ , she thinks.

And for Rosie, that word encompasses so many things all at once. She sees David Ranier's kind eyes and quiet mannerisms and pushes them away because no matter what she was trying to find or prove when she went to him, that man is not her father. _Not really_.

He never held her when she was small. He wasn't the one who told her not to let the other kids in Mrs. Anderson's kindergarten class push her around, a lesson that she would carry with her through all of her elementary, junior high, and high school years. He wasn't the one who grounded her for taking the truck for a solo joy ride the day after she got her permit, but then caved and let her come out for ice cream with everyone that same night. That man is just beyond the glass, and she wants so badly to tell him that she's going away, to say goodbye. But she doesn't.

_She can't._

-

Sterling is laughing at the dance and Rosie worries if she'll be okay without her.

Sterling has never been that strong, not like Rosie. And she's more than a little paralyzed by her thing for Jasper. Rosie knows that it's only going to end badly, but she also knows there's nothing she can do to stop it. There's a part of her that wants to tell Sterling that it's not worth it, because even though they've known him forever, at bottom? Jasper's just this spoiled rich kid who's got no idea what it's like to be normal, who's father taught him the value of getting whatever he wants whenever he wants it, and because of that he'll never appreciate people like her and Sterling, real people. At least not now. Not before he goes and does something stupid that will hurt her.

Even if Rosie does say something, Sterling, with her bright eyes and open heart, will just let it happen anyway. She's the kind of girl who needs to learn things the hard way. She reminds Rosie of her Aunt Terry in that way. And as fiercely as she loves them both, she knows she can't protect them. For them, lessons aren't real until you've lived through them. But at least they only need to live it once.

Rosie's never been like that. But she gets it. She understands how Sterling can only see the good until the bad is right in front of her face.

_It's what she loves about her._

She grabs Sterling's hand, pulls her away, onto the dance floor.

"Come on," she says. "Let's dance."

 

-

As the taxi carries her away from the dance, she thinks of Alexi.

This happens more often than not these days.

She imagines the ink that winds its way up his neck and she remembers tracing the marks with her fingers one night while she watches TV at his place and he sits beside her quietly sketching a portrait of her.

"Are you going to give that to me?" she asks him when he's done.

"No," he says with a chuckle, shaking his head and pushing the notebook out of sight, under a throw pillow at his side.

" _Hey_ ," Rosie leans over him and grabs for it, but he's got her wrist in his grasp before she can get to it.

"Not a chance, Larsen," he teases fighting her off. "That one's for me," he says, his voice lowered this time, grave. "To remember you by."

_That's when Rosie kisses him._

-

There's a moment on the tenth floor when Rosie's fear spikes and she swallows hard.

_I wanna go home_ , she thinks, and if she weren't so scared she'd probably roll her eyes at the Dorothy Gale parallels. Little girl from Kansas with dreams of a better life, of beauty, a foiled attempt to run away, big scary tornado. Realizing with sudden clarity that there really is _no place like home._

Only in her case, the big scary is not a tornado.

_Not even close._

-

Rosie runs until it feels like knives are cutting into her lungs.

She runs until she can't feel her legs anymore.

_She runs._

And then she stops.

-

Right before she dies, Rosie has this moment where she feels grateful.

Grateful that her last day on earth was spent living every minute, and cherishing every last moment with the people she loved, even if it was yards away and separated by a pane of glass.

She got to say goodbye, in her own way.

In her own way, she did.

_That's enough._

-

She closes her eyes and she's at Pismo beach, at the butterfly grove.

Alexi holds her hand and kisses her shoulder. Sterling fixes juice boxes for the boys and looks happier than she has in a long time.

Her mom snaps their picture, and examines the results on the digital screen. "Good one," she tells them, and turns the camera around to show them.

Stan calls from a distance. "Come here guys," he says. "you gotta see this!"

Rosie lets go of Alexi's hand and is on her feet, heading toward the sound of his voice.

"Coming," she calls. "Where are you?"

_-fin_  



End file.
